Carlos Canal owns a towing business at Willets Point but he was more than happy to sell his parcel of land to the City of New York to move to a better facility for his business and for the redevelopment of this eye sore property and Mr. Canal feels his fellow Willets Pointers should do the same as the area is literally a dump and a health hazard:

{You get tired of this place. It’s a disgrace. It’s too dirty. It’s filled with garbage and dust, and there are potholes everywhere. You can’t keep anything in our shop clean. The area is filled with rats. If you put a piece of bread in the middle of Willets Point, a thousand rats would run out and attack it. The city has to do something with this property. It’s disgusting, and you can’t work here because it makes you sick.}

Even without the new ball park this area has needed an overhaul for years and now with the promise of affordable housing and jobs for area residents this proposal needs to pass the Den of Thieves (NYC City Council) if not maybe President Obama could assign a Special Prosecutor to investigate the area political hacks who oppose this deal to find out why?  

In the latest missive from the WWL, Peter Gammons is trying to sell the fact that the Skill Sets are not swimming in cash as it appears:

{The Mets don’t have the kind of money everyone thinks, especially having to pay Billy Wagner $10M next season. They will spend to get a starter, a reliever and a bat to supplement Ryan Church in right and the Daniel Murphy/Fernando Tatis platoon in left.

No one knows what impact the economy will have on baseball, especially in New York, but someone is going to pay a price for the national debt increasing by $450B in October. The Mets are not going to jump over the luxury tax threshold, so they will continue to build around David Wright, Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran, figure Mike Pelfrey will continue his quantum leap forward, and do their best to fill in around them.}

So a team that owns a television station, has a brand new ball park in the most populous city in the country and has sold all his suites and will draw a minimum of 3.5 mil fans has no money to improve the team? And tell me what the National debt has to do with the Mets finances? Sorry Gammo I’m not buying it. I’m not ready to go out and buy a pennant because I don’t think building through free agency is the answer but don’t you dare insult the Mets fan base and cry poverty. By the way to read the whole article you have to pay to read it.

In a way I understand the obsession the Philadelphia Phillies have with the Mets. As much as the can celebrate being the best team in baseball, they know in the back of their mind that the Mets have the resources to make their championship rein very brief. They know this Mets fan base is not only vocal but is not intimated of it’s management to call it out and force it’s hand.  I mean what other pro sports team can be readying the opening of a brand new ball park and have it’s fan not give a shit about food courts and roomy seating if the team is not going to go out and fight for 162 games? And it’s not even about winning championships as we’re not idiots (as management thinks we are) no we know that a season that concludes with a World Series trophy is special what Mets fans ask for from their team is passion and 100 % balls to the wall hustle and if we don’t get it you are going to here from us.

And for this some in the main stream media chastise us for booing and giving our team a tough time. Well I’m not a boo bird as a guy my age looks silly booing anyway and beside why boo when I have a keyboard to get my opinion out. That’s why I feel our division rivals hate for the team is more a fear of us Mets fans.

When our rivals say the Mets celebrate to much, Mets fans say “Good, more curtain calls please” When they complain about Joese Reyes dancing and handshakes Mets chant “Jose-Jose-Jose” louder and longer. The biggest fear Mets opponents have is that the team takes on the persona of it’s fans because they know if that happens it’s over for them.

So Philadelphia enjoy your parade and I’ll continue my tough love of the Mets and I’ll slap them around until they show me they will slap and when they do your ass is ours.

Little Jeffey Skill Set can not wait until all of Shea Stadium is carted off to the landfill o he can open for business his new cash register a/k/a $iti Field. Jeffey could not give a shit how you and I feel about Shea and about the attachment some of the fan base has with the old ball park, no all he cares about is his suites will be full with no nothing assholes as himself and guys like you and me will regulated to the upper deck where we can be seen but not heard just the way the Skill Sets like it. You can just envision little Jeffey jumping for joy as Shea comes down piece by piece:

{The track on which stands once slid to make Shea a football stadium has been unearthed. The twin light towers will be taken down any day to further clear the area beyond the outfield so the Mets can build the plaza wrapping around Citi Field.

“They’re so high, and so close to Mr. Wilpon’s new baby,” said Toby Romano, a vice president of Breeze National, the demolition subcontractor, said of the towers’ proximity to the nearly finished Citi.

“Nice and easy, we’ll pull them down,” said Danny Collins, a Breeze foreman.

“If it were me,” said Jeff Wilpon, the team’s chief operating officer, who wants Shea to be gone as soon as possible. “I’d just go in and bring them down.” Wilpon added: “I’d love to drive a Bobcat, blasting through this place.”}

And you want to know why I get so fucking mad about the management and direction of this franchise?

Yes, Jeffey that’s the same irrational thinking that will doom this franchise as long as you keep sticking your beak in the baseball business where it doesn’t belong. Hey Jeffey-Poo maybe you can sell the Shea scarp and use the dough to pay off Gimp Castillo’s contract?

Then we have this quote from J W Colluci who is not a Mets fan as we see in this quote but he is a guy who doesn’t get laid much: 

{Inside the tight cab sat J. W. Colucci, an operating engineer.

How does it feel, he was asked, to be wrecking Shea?

“Sometimes,” Colucci said, a smile on his dusty face, “it feels better than sex.”}

Hey Mr. Colluci go fuck yourself.

Why does everything Isiah Thomas try to do become so complicated?

A Tim Marchaman sighting , tip of the Mets Cap to the Baseball Think Factory.

Mets Fever has the lowdown on the AFL all star game and Eddie Kunz blowing the save in the game. I really don’t know how much stock to put into Kunz’ time in the AFL he has had some very good appearances but lately he is not pitching well at all and how much does this play into his role for the ‘09 Mets and what it means for the moves Omar needs to revamp the piss poor pen?

Willie Randolph turned down a job with the Curly W’s to be a bench coach for Manny Acta. No surprise there as Acta and Willie hate each others guts.

Check out Mike Silva’s NY Baseball Digest  interview with former Mets reliever Skip Lockwood.

Tip of the Mets Cap to great site Uni Watch for the link to Roger Angell story on George Hendrick, now a Famous Rays coach on his being the player who started the awful baseball fashion statement of pants to spats which I hate to no end.   

Nice win by the Blueshirts last night but a tough one for Coach Renny as he took a the stick of Blue Jacets d-man Rotislav Klasla in the noggin and was knocked cold.  

Outstanding article in the New York Observer on the obstacles in allowing the city to get started on the redevelopment of Willets Point as to add more to the $iti Field experience  and make the area one where you would stay at after a Mets game. As it is now the pre and post game rituals of Mets fans will be the same even with the new ball park as the area around it offers nothing in the way of restaurants, bars or shopping. I have yet to meet any Mets fans who say “hey let’s hang out in Corona after the game”  it’s more “let’s get to the city, pronto”. So it would be a no brainer to support a plan that would bring much needed dollars into the community to make the Willets Point like a mini Baltimore Inner Harbor where baseball fans would come  even tourists, to get a look and tour of $iti Field and spend money in bussiness located in this village type atmosphere. But then again it looks like greased palms wins over common sense when it comes to the Den of Thieves a/k/a The NYC City Council as we see with our old pal Councilman Hiram Monserrate and his reasons for supporting the chop hop owners:

{The landowners have also been prolific donors to council members from Queens, spreading, according to campaign filings, more than $111,000 between just eight candidates for city office in 2009: Comptroller Bill Thompson and council members David Weprin, Peter Vallone Jr., Eric Gioia, Melinda Katz, Helen Sears, Tony Avella, and Mr. Liu. The local councilman, Mr. Monserrate, has received more than $50,000 from Willets Point business owners in his bid for a State Senate seat next month.}

and of course Monserrate is not just getting that tribute he also playing pocket pool with the biggest property owner in the Iron Triangle,  Tully Environmental: 

{Key to winning Council support, multiple people familiar with discussions said, is the fate of the largest landowner at the site, Tully Environmental. Relocation would likely be difficult for a property owner of Tully’s size, and the firm has been the most active campaign contributor of any of the landowners to local elected officials. The firm, along with other companies listed with the same address, has targeted Mr. Monserrate above the other elected officials, putting at least $22,500 toward his Senate campaign, according to campaign filings.}

I would love to know how much the Skill Sets had to pony up to Monserrate’s campaign fund to get the ok for the building of $iti Field?

So there was Derek Lowe sailing, or should I say sinking along through five innings when the Philletes got the break of the game when Rafael Furcal decides to lose all good judgement to eat the grounder by Shane Victorino and throws wildly past James Loney at first send Victorino to second. This woke up the crowd which looked splendid in their brand new Phillies duds as this new phenomena of baseball has taken over a city in which the Iggles and Flyers are the top two teams with the AHL Phantoms third. From there Lowe got a bit rattled (by the way, Lowe was sweating like a pig going to slaughter last night I know it’s unseasonable warm here in the east but Lowe looked like he was pitching on an August night) and went away from what was working all night, killing worms with his sinker, as he got two fastballs up to Utley and Burrell who hit it out of the South Philly Band Box to put the game away for Phinks. As tough as it is who have to keep the ball in the ball park against Philly as that is about the only way they score, hold them homer-less and you stand a good chance of winning.

How hard was it to listen to the televison audio of last night s game? Just when you could not think the duo of Mc Fullofshit and Doofus Joe could get any worse they reached an all time low last night. The constant hammering of Manny Ramirez is to the point of unprofessionalism on the part of the FOX duo. How many more times do we need to hear about Manny shoving the Red Sox traveling secretary? The story always comes out the same way Manny asked for more tickets to a game the TS said he couldn’t get him anymore and Manny knocked him on his ass. My question is what did the TS say or do to make Manny react that way? Did Manny just knock him down for shits and giggles or was he provoked. I’m not trying to be a Manny apologists here but there has to be two sides to this story.

That’s why this afternoon, if Tim Mc Fullofshit and Doofus Joe don’t go in depth on Brett Myers punching his wife in the face last year in Boston or the fact that Jimmy Rollins had to disciplined by Charlie Manuel twice this season then they are more gutless and vile than I make them out to be. It seems both of these putz’s have an “agenda”

Check this out from the Mets Police. It’s a slide show shot from the top of Shea on the final day. The pics are outstanding.

If there is an afterlife I know one guy I do not want to come back as and that’s Clint Marlarchuk.  

Thanks to Lodge 13 for the props on my rant on $iti Field. It seems the Skill Sets are also slow in refunding the dough they received from fans who bought post season tickets. My advice to those fans is to call Andrew Cuomo,the State Attorney General and advise him of this scam the Skill Sets are pulling.

Leave it to the Skill Sets to piss me off after a great weekend. With J-Man back as Warlord and his willingness to toss some of his weight around with Omar,  J-Man agrees with Mets fans that the team needs to leave it’s pussyifed ways behind them, along with thoughts of Manny, Pierzyniski, Peavey and Sugar from Survivor running through my head (not only does Sugar ooooozzzzzeee sexiness she’s from Brooklyn too)  a couple of articles this weekend have my blood boiling which doesn’t take much when it comes to the Mets and the Sill Sets.

First, there is a story of the woman who had sprinkled her late father’s ashes on the pitching mound at Shea Stadium a few years back. Now that the ball park is being dismantled, Lisa Hanson and her son Ben went to Shea with the wish of scooping up some dirt from the mound as a remembrance of her dad. But of course the management of the Mets, which we know is totally clueless when it comes to customer relations, told Ms. Hanson that she could not go on the field because of the work being in done on the take down of Shea. Okay, she did show up unannounced and maybe a bad time but you would think some dolt in management would have come out and made an arrangement with Ms. Hanson to get her remembrance but that would take intelligence and compassion which is in very short supply under the Skill Set regime as we see here with this quote from Skill Set Court Jester Jay Bird Horowitz:

  Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said the organization could not let Hasson on the field for “safety reasons,” as workers were tearing out the bleachers and using large machinery.

“”I’m not trying to be hard about it,” Horwitz said.”But the stadium is closed.”

I think Horowitz was juggling and wearing a five pointed jester hat when he made this stupid remark (I can’t substantiate this rumor but I heard when he looked out of the new $iti Field press box, he said “Oh look I see Russia”.) I guess it would be too much to have some GOOD publicity out of Flushing as the Skill Sets could not figure out how to give this woman a date to come back and go on the field to scoop the dirt,  maybe if she bought a couple of  $869.00 seats they’d  do her the solid.

Thankfully a couple of Mets fans/construction workers came to Ms. Hanson’s rescue. I want to see Jeffey say something to the hard hats for doing this good deed so they can attach the hook from one of the cranes to his arse and lift him off the ground until he cries.  

We all know that Shea was inundated with felines and their job was to keep the rat droppings off the sausage grills (I know you’re all going EEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, but you know what I doing you folks a favor stop eating that shit it’s no good for you.) but the cats have been a Shea staple and now a team of animal rescuers want the cats to be moved over to $iti Field. I don’t know what these folks are even bringing it up, the cats are smart enough to know to go next door as the rats from Flushing Bay and the Iron Triangle will be on the $iti Field doorstep. Along a new closer and a slugging outfielder, a good tabby is escentail to success at $iti Field. Just remember that when you hit the Shake Shack concession.

More anger from bloggers about the rip off by the Skill Sets when $iti Field opens. This one comes from Andrew Beaton of Hot Foot with his post Outrage At $iti Field. I wish there were a way t ofind out who is buying up these luxuary boxes and paying all the dough for the seats behind the $iti Field backstop and if any of this bailout cash is going to Mets tickets?  

I can’t figure out who I want to advance to the World Series but I know the Phucking Phillies are not on that list. I look at the Brooklyn Dodgers of Los Angles and I see Manny and the case he keeps making for Omar and Tony B to turn on that Latin charm and Skill Sets coin to bring him to Flushing. I look at the Rays and I see Scott Kazmir and Joe Maddon (I got to get me a pair of Joe Maddon frames) and the fact that Stu Sternberg is not only a Mets season ticket holder but he’s from Brooklyn (maybe me and Stu can go over to Sugar’s house)  then I look at the two pair of Sox and I’m rooting for Tito , Papi and Pap to do his jig but then I love Ozzie “Fuck the Cubs” Gullien as he is the most honest and up front manager in baseball. The Halos play the game they way Little League coaches should teach kids to play from the age of 5. So what to do? The Kazmir, Joe Maddon specs and the Brooklyn/Mets fan component is too strong for me to fight so it’s GO RAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tim March man is alive and well and writing for the Wall Street Journal. A tip of the Mets cap to Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball for the link.

I done here; time to watch Sugar prancing on exile island.on TiVO

Hi y’all just back from Boston and I must apologize for the lack of posts the last few days. We spent three days at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, a beautiful old hotel with a grand lobby ( I love hotel lobbies ) first class dining, fabulous accomodations and a great location (two blocks from Boston Common and three stops on the Green Line to Fenway Park) but the big draw back was the lack of internet serivce. The hotel charges $12 bucks a day for service and my WI-FI was picking  up weak signals from neighboring business and residence and since we spent hardly any time in the room, it didn’t pay to get service (nor did I have the time as Boston is a walking city and boy did WE WALK!!!!) as I just about made it through Baseball Tonight each night before falling asleep.

So since I was gone the Mets have hit a skid but the kids are arriving in Eddie Kunz and David Murphy joining Mike Evans and it looks like The Teen Aged Hitting Machine is close to joining the club as well. Billy Wags is on the DL and for some reason J-Man thinks Aaron Heilman can close. Maybe someday the light will go on in someone in someone in the Mets front office head and realize that Heilman should be a starter. He neither has the make up or stuff to close. His head and heart is not in it. I can see with Dirty losing velocity and no one else on this staff with closer qualities then why not just give the job to Kunz. Sure it’s baptism under fire but at this point what choice do the Mets have? at least Kunz has closer history and did pitch in pressure situations in college so what the hell let him close.

More tomorrow on my trip to Fenway  What a great time we had. We went to the game on Sunday and then went back Monday for a tour of the ball park. I haven’t been to Fenway in about 15 years and I have to give props to the current Red Sox managemnt for fixing the place up and making it a must see ballpark for any baseball fan.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh vacation time, it’s wonderful. Before I leave for Cape Cod and a trip to Boston and Fenway Park I will be in attendance at Shea for tonight’s game as the turnaround season rolls on. No post tomorrow as it’s a long travel day but I hope to post Monday my “Fitty’ Birthday” by the way , so before I get some last minute stuff done and head to Shea a few thoughts:

Two of the biggest players of this turnaround have been Carlos Delgado and Mike Pelfrey and not surprisingly both players have been helped by the change in manager and pitching coach. Delgado seemed to hate being at the ball park when Willie Randolph was in charge as it seems Randolph’s reign in the clubhouse was a tension convention but for some reason the main streamers give us just bits and pieces of  life in Mets clubhouse under Willie. I guess theiy will let us know when their books come out. Rick Peterson told Mike Pelfrey to never throw a curveball again. Dean of School Dan Werthen worked with Pelfery on his breaking ball to go with his 90+ heater to make him a complete pitcher. No bracelets, no gem stones just good common sense.

I can’t figure out Dirty Duaner. He gets ahead of batters and can’t finish them off. Is it bad luck or poor performance?

Brandon Knight, the definition of a journeyman, makes his Mets debut tonight as a stand in for Petey. Knight has had a great year in NOLA and was ready to join Davey Johnson and Team USA in Beijing but on the insistence of Dan Werthen he was summoned for this spot start.

Looks like the Highlanders stole Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte from the Bucs but I’m not worried about that as with all the rumors and names out there the guy I hope we land is Casey Blake. Blake has descent power and can player OF, 3B, and 1st  his one draw back is striking out a lot but we can live with that as Blake is the righty bat the Mets need.

Manny isn’t happy in Boston. The Red Sox front office, owners, players and fans are not happy with Manny.  I think you know where I’m going here, If I’m Omar I have to make a call in fact if Omar wants to give me Theo Epstein’s number and I’ll meet him for lunch when I get  into town.